How To Make Indian Restaurant Curry Sauce

Name: How To Make Indian Restaurant Curry Sauce
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 1 h
Total time: 1 h 20 min
Cuisine: Indian
Ingredients: 10 large cooking onions – finely sliced; 250ml vegetable oil; 9 tablespoons garlic/ginger paste (equal amounts garlic and ginger blended into a paste with a little water.); 1 carrot - peeled and chopped; ¼ head of cabbage - chopped; 1 red capsicum (bell pepper) - diced; 1 green capsicum (bell pepper) - diced; water; 400ml (14 US fluid ounces ) chopped tomatoes; 4 tablespoons ghee (clarified butter); 1 tablespoon garam masala powder; 1 tablespoon cumin powder; 1 tablespoon coriander powder; 1 tablespoon fenugreek powder; 1 tablespoon smoked paprika; 1 tablespoon turmeric; Salt and pepper to taste (I usually leave this out and simply add it to the final dish)

December 31, 2013 By Dan Toombs 349 Comments

Large batches of curry sauce are made daily at Indian restaurants around the UK.

This curry house style base curry sauce will get you the results you’re looking for!

Visit the kitchen of any busy curry house and you are almost certain to see a large saucepan of curry sauce/gravy simmering away on the stove. This sauce is used as a base for most of the restaurant’s curries.

Each restaurant has their own special recipe but they are usually quite similar. The base sauce makes it possible for chefs to cook, plate and serve many different curries quickly and easily.

This smooth base curry sauce is just one of the things that give British Indian restaurant (BIR) style curries their distinctive flavour and texture that is loved by so many.

Cooking curries in a more authentic Indian style just wouldn’t be possible in most restaurants as it would be too labour intensive, overly time consuming and not cost effective.

What exactly is the base curry sauce?

I like to describe the base curry sauce as a fancy vegetable stock. It doesn’t have a lot of flavour though it does taste good. Add some chicken, cumin, garam masala, a large heap or two of chili powder, mango chutney and a few other ingredients and you’ve got yourself a chicken madras.

Keep the chilli powder to a minimum and add some cream, block coconut, rose water and a dusting of cardamom powder and voila… a fragrant chicken korma.

Stay tuned for all the upcoming recipes. Together with this sauce you will be able to create curries better than you’ll find at most restaurants. I guarantee it!

Here are a few curry house style recipes you can use this sauce in now!

Try my Chicken Tikka Masala recipe from my cookbook ‘The Curry Guy’
Chicken Tikka Masala
Chicken Korma
Chicken Madras
Chicken Dhansak
Lamb Rogan Josh
Lamb Vindaloo
Chicken Chilli Garlic
Chicken Patia
Lamb Bhuna

I have now filmed two videos for you to follow. These are slightly different recipes to the one below but they are the recipes featured in my cookbook ‘The Curry Guy’ which you can order online here.

Of course you could always use my small batch version, but if you really want to achieve that authentic curry house and/or balti house flavour, you’ve got to go large.

Note: In the photographs below you will find two photos demonstrating adding ghee to this recipe. These are photos from an earlier version of this recipe.

It is done at many restaurants but I no longer add it. It is tasty though. Simply melt 250ml ghee and add about a tsp turmeric as in the photos. Pour this over the sauce and stir it in. This is of course optional but many chefs do it.

Check out this photo and copy it. Your sauce will be perfect. Only use about half of the cabbage. Any cabbage will do.

Fry your onions over low heat in the hot oil for about 30 minutes.

Your onions should look like this when you add the next ingredients.

The spices – cumin, coriander, garam masala, fenugreek and turmeric

Toss in the rest of your vegetables and stir into the onions.

Add the garlic and ginger and stir it in.

Now stir in the tomatoes

In go the spices except for the turmeric

It’s coming along just perfectly.

Add enough boiling water to cover and simmer for 20 – 30 minutes.

Time to blend.

After about three minutes of blending, the base curry sauce should look like this.

In another pan, melt your ghee and then add the turmeric.

Add the turmeric and ghee to the sauce and stir in.

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One thing I get asked often is whether or not you have to use a base curry sauce in your curry house style curries. The answer is yes if you want your curries to be just like you get them at your favourite restaurant.

That said, if you just want a good curry and don’t have time to whip up a batch of base curry sauce, you could do it the authentic Indian way. Finely chop two to three onions and fry them in about 3 tablespoons of oil.

Fry until the onions are soft and translucent. This should take about five minutes.

Then just follow any of the curry house style recipes on my website and add water, stock or chopped tomatoes to create a sauce. You really can’t go wrong. Taste as you go and your curry, though not just like those you find at curry houses will be delicious.

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